Health Claims

Eating even a small amount of meat or fish with a plant-based meal can help your body absorb more iron from the plants.

Calcium can make it harder for your body to absorb iron from food, especially in women and kids, but taking calcium supplements over time might not actually lead to low iron because your body could...

Stuff in plant foods like beans and tea can make it harder for your body to absorb iron, especially if you're eating foods with added iron—because they bind to the iron and make it harder to use.

Vitamin C helps your body absorb iron from plant foods better, and the more vitamin C you eat with your meal, the more iron you absorb—up to a point.

Even though only a small part of the iron we eat comes from meat, fish, and poultry, our bodies absorb a lot more of that type—so much that it makes up over 40% of all the iron we actually take in.

Lab mice get more than 20% of their energy from gut bacteria breaking down food, which is way more than humans do, so mouse studies might overestimate how much we rely on our gut microbes for energy.

Your gut bacteria don’t change how much waste they produce overall, but they do change what kinds of waste chemicals—like butyrate and lactate—are made, and this mix is different for everyone...

Most of the stuff your gut bacteria eat turns into helpful chemicals like butyrate, and your body soaks up almost all of it—very little ends up in poop.

What you eat—especially fiber and complex carbs—mostly decides how much gut fermentation happens, and eating more of these carbs can boost fermentation by up to five times compared to a standard...

The gut bacteria in people eating lots of fiber can provide up to 12% of their daily energy, while those on a typical Western diet get only 2%–5% from their gut bugs — so what you eat changes how...

Primates with thicker tooth enamel tend to eat harder, tougher foods — probably because thicker enamel helps their teeth survive the heavy crunching without cracking.

Big teeth in Paranthropus might have helped them survive tough times by letting them eat hard backup foods when their usual meals weren’t available — explaining why their teeth look worn in...

Big, thick teeth in some ancient human relatives might have made it easier to chew tough foods like roots and tubers when their usual food wasn't available.

Some groups, like the Pima Indians and Australian Aborigines, are seeing more type 2 diabetes because their bodies may be genetically used to handling sugar differently, and today’s processed,...

Some groups, like the Pima Indians and Nauruans, might have genes that store energy more efficiently because of past famines and being cut off from others — which helped them survive back then, but...

Eating very few carbs and lots of protein might make your body less sensitive to insulin — not because it's broken, but because it's adapting to save glucose when carbs are scarce, like in ancient...

Some groups, like Europeans, might be less likely to get type 2 diabetes because their ancestors started eating farm-based, high-carb diets thousands of years ago—giving their bodies more time to...

Back when humans were hunters during the Ice Age, their bodies might have adapted to use less insulin so their brains and babies could keep getting enough sugar — and that same trait might still be...

Eating more plant-based proteins and fats instead of animal ones could help people live longer and be better for the planet.

What you eat can change how your genes work and even help protect you from diseases you might be genetically prone to.

Eating a lot of processed foods and animal products might be worse for your long-term health than smoking, and it's a top reason people die early or get sick around the world.

People can digest both plants and meat thanks to how their bodies evolved, but being able to eat meat doesn’t mean they have to eat a lot of it.

Eating mostly whole plant foods like fruits, veggies, beans, and grains is linked to fewer chronic diseases, living longer, and being better for the planet—so it’s a win-win for people and Earth.

If you eat a meat-heavy diet with not much sugar, your body might need less vitamin C because sugar isn't getting in the way of absorbing it—and meat has enough vitamin C to keep you healthy.